• Born Michael Luther King, Jr., on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.
  • In 1935, his father changed both of their names to Martin to honor the German Protestant.
  • While at Crozer College, King was elected president of a predominantly white senior class.
  • King was a minister at his fathers Church
  • Active member of the NAACP
  • King led the boycott of Montgomery's segregated buses for over a year
  • In 1957, King was elected president of the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
  • His approach was based on the ideas of Henry David Thoreau and Mohandas Gandhi as well on Christian teachings. A trip to India in 1959 to meet the Gandhi family cemented his belief in nonviolent resistance and his commitment to civil rights in the United States.
  • Brought Civil rights to the forefront of politics
  • March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was the cooperative effort of the Big Six civil rights organizations, SCLC, NAACP, Urban League, SNCC, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and the Congress of Racial Equality. An unequivocal success, more than a quarter million people of all ethnicities attended the event, making it the largest gathering of protesters in Washington's history.

SPAM
S-MLK JR
P- Equality for Everyone
A- The whole United states
M- Washington D.C In front of the Lincoln Memorial to finish what Lincoln had started

Interesting Facts:
Practiced the ideas of Ghandi and Thoreau
Ghandi practiced Non-violent resistance
Used Thoreau's ideas of Civil Disobediance and his writings of slavery being wrong
Started to say the speech straight off the top of his head at the I Have a Dream section.

Rhetorical Devices:
  1. Horative Sentence
  2. Allusion
  3. Anaphora
  4. Figurative Language
  5. Ethos
  6. Pathos
  7. Logos
  8. Mythos
  9. Asydeton
  10. Rhetorical Question
QUIZ (Sorry for lateness- I uploaded it, but apparently it didn't work
1) What year did MLK JR present his famous speech?

2) Explain the significance of giving the speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
3) Present one major rhetorical device used within the speech and explain how it assists
Doctor King reach his point across to the audience.
4) What was the major reason MLK JR presented his speech? Give an example/quote in
the speech which supports his ideas.

5) Explain how his speech represents the American voice (What were the blacks fighting
for). What period is this an example of?